10.4: Sex Ratio

Gender roles, economic decisions, and even government policies all influence where women and men live. Without the effect of culture, the sex ratio should be almost perfectly 1:1 – men to women. However, in many places around the world that ratio is skewed, sometimes dramatically, in favor of one sex or another. Skewing can occur because the infant mortality rate for boys may be higher or lower than it is for girls, or because women may outlive men by a few years on average. In the United States, about 105 boys are born for every 100 girls, but because more boys die as infants, through violence as young men, and from heart and lung disease as older men, women outnumber men in the United States slightly (97 males for everyone 100 females or .97). That ratio can be greatly exaggerated in some countries, and even in some US states. In the Lowland South, and parts of the Upper Midwest there are lots more women than men. The imbalance in the Deep South is related to the exaggerated infant mortality rate and the levels of deadly violence, especially among African-Americans. In the Upper Midwest, where the average age is unusually high, elderly women skew the ratio toward women. On the other hand, in places where economic numerous opportunities for men in heavy industry and mining creates an excess male population.

Figure 10-15: US map of counties by ratio of males to females expressed in standard deviation above or below the national average of 96.7 males to females.

Economic opportunities can also draw people across international borders as well. In many of the oil-producing countries of the Middle East, there are extremely lopsided sex ratios favoring men, while women far outnumber men in the countries where the migrants left. Sexist cultural attitudes, wars and government policies can also create imbalanced sex ratios. In parts of India, where families often pay a large dowry in order to secure a husband for a daughter and stand to receive a sizeable dowry for each married son, it appears that boys are favored enough over girls that the sex ratio skews heavily toward boys. Similarly, in China where a national One-Child Policy (1979-2015) designed to reduce China’s population growth rate combined with traditional notions about gender greatly diminished the number of girls born there for nearly two generations. As a result, by 2020, China is expected to have nearly 30 million more men than women. Even small imbalances in the sex ratio have numerous, often significant, consequences for societies, including increases in crime and, ironically, an increase in the population growth rate.

Figure 10-16: Sichuan, China. This roadside sign reminds passers-by that “It is forbidden to discriminate against, mistreat or abandon baby girls”, a horrifying indication of the human cost that traditional gender roles can have. Source: Wikimedia.